I’m going to the states for a week soon and have been doing a few things to prepare. One of them has been the IFTTT that takes foreign currency out of a pot, which is awesome.
Just had an idea though, how useful would it be to have an option to show your current balance in a local currency? It could be based on the current mastercard exchange rate for an accurate representation of how much you have to spend. Or to show you in both GBP and USD alongside each other maybe?
I always find when travelling, rounding up prices to a rough exchange rate in my head never really works over the course of a holiday.
I don’t know how easy or difficult this would be to implement, but I thought it would be pretty great…
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I think it could be useful, but it would be taken as gospel and that is bad because the final amount settles in a few days when the rate will have changed. But it would be handy for a ‘approx $463.35 USD’ in smaller type (like the overdraft font size).
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Good point, and I didn’t know about the exchange rate changing bit. So the amount it shows you in your timeline is like a pre-authorised amount (so to speak)?
It sure is, it’ll be the amount at the time you made the transaction. Which will be the same in USD as it settles but could go up or doen in GBP.
Maybe your balance in GBP but you set a country and have the rough amount in the local currency.
Like the two clock settings on phones
Yeah, precisely. Would be so good when travelling, even if it’s a rough idea based on the current mastercard rates it would be really useful.
In the absence of that feature, I’d get me a current balance in the local currency with the Revolut app.
Oh it’s another banking app? Would mean opening another current account… But you say you can get a balance in a foreign currency with it?
Not a current account, Revolut is a pre-paid card focused on traveling.
Oh amazing, sounds like a great idea!
Yep. Does what it does very well. CS not great, but I’ve not needed them. Check it out.